Re: curses/termcap (was gdbm vs db)
> >I don't see what's wrong with using libncurses.so.3.0. We are using
> >it for Debian and haven't had any problems.
>
> Well, it's a bit prettier to only have one numerical component in the
> soname. I agree that this is not a major concern, just something that
> ought to be changed _if_ we diverge.
Right, the emphasis should be on *if* we need to diverge. My main
point is that the current soname is already in wide-spread use so we
shouln't change it unnecessarily.
> >Debian already *has* standardized on ncurses. Of course, if Zeyd or
> >whomever starts changing the ABI willy nilly without concern for
> >backwards compatibility, we will probably consider maintaining our own
> >version.
>
> (tongue in cheek) You say `starts', I say `continues'. Let's call the
> whole thing off :-)
Well, yes. BTW, I do recall seeing a message a while back from one of
the ncurses developers, not Zeyd, which indicated they weren't
planning on changing the ABI for quite some time.
> I'd also ask what debian plan to do if/when libc.so.6 is released. Do
> you have a plan for this, or are you going leave that bridge uncrossed
> until you come to it?
We learned quite a bit on how to handle things like this when we
switched from a.out (libc4) to ELF (libc5). Probably the biggest
thing we did to ease such transitions was to split packages containing
shared libraries into separate run-time and development packages.
Users can install mulitple major versions of run-time packages for a
particular library but can only install one development version. Our
package dependency mechanism ensures that all development versions are
compatiblie.
David
--
David Engel Optical Data Systems, Inc.
david@ods.com 1101 E. Arapaho Road
(214) 234-6400 Richardson, TX 75081
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